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Glass _JL-klU. 



Book 



" Grateful results of the war against the slaveholder's rebellion. " 



A SERMON 



PREACHED AT A 



UNION MEETING 



ufiwi, 



st'§inu 



C5«BgffB^i«ti»r 3i&KUtiii», 



HINESBUHGH, VT., 

ON THE DAT OF 

STATE AND NATIONAL THANKSGIYING, 

DECEMBER 7, 1865, By 

Rev. C, E. FERRIN, 

PASTOR OF THE 

CONGREGATiONAL CHURCH. 



FREE PRESS STEAM JOB PRINTING OFFICE, 

1866. 



6 



fS 



Grateful results of the war against the slaveholder's rebellion. " 

A SERMON 



PREACHED AT A 



UNION MEETING 






t, '^itl0iliiit-#fW)t 



IN 

HINESBURGH, VT., 

ON THE DAY OP 

STATE AND NATIONAL THANKSGIVING, 

DECEMBER 7, 1865, By 

Rev. Cv E. FERKIN, 

PASTOR OF THE 

CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH. 



FREE PRESS STEAM JOB PRINTING OFFICE, 

1866, 






HiNESBURGu, Vt., Dec. 14th, 1865. 
Hev. Clark E. Ferrin, 

Pastor of Congregational Church, 
Sir:— 

The citizens of this town who were privileged 
to listen to the able discourse delivered by you on the occasion of the late State 
and National Thanksgiving, have appointed the undersigned a conimittee> 
through whom to express to you their high appreciation of the merits of said 
discourse, and their thanks for its preparation with so much labor and careful 
study. Desiring that our fellow citizens who were not present may have an 
opportunity to peruse it, and believing that its general circulation will be pro- 
motive of a sound christian patriotism, they have instructed us to request that 
you will furnish a copy for publication. 

Hoping that you will gratify us by an early compliance with this request, 
AVe have the honor to remain, 

Reverend Sir, 

Your Obedient Servants, 

ABEL E. LEAVENWORTH, ^ 

W. B. VIELE, ! „ 

J. F. MILES, r Committee. 

E. BEECHER. J 



HiNESBURGH, Dcc. loth, 1865. 
Messrs. Abel E. Leavenworth, W. B. Viele, J. F. Miles, and E. Beecher, 
Dear Sirs : 

Your note expressing your appreciation of the discourse of 
Thanksgiving day, and requesting a copy for publication, was handed me last 
evening. The discourse was prepared amidst the labors of pastoral duty of 
which it is a part, and seems to me of less merit than your complimentary 
terms would indicate. It is perhaps a fair expression of my reading and think- 
ing upon the great struggle through Avhich we have just come, and of my 
hopeful expectations for the future ; and as such it properly belongs to those 
who have so long and kindly encouraged me to labor with them. Wheth- 
er all we hope for will be realized, must depend on the " christian patriotism" 
with which we, as a nation, meet the grave tasks before us. And as you be- 
lieve the perusal of the discourse may promote this patriotism, a copy is here- 
by cheerfully placed at your disposal. 

Yours with much respect and affection, 

C. E. FERRIN. 






A SERMON. 



Mat. Xrri ; 16, 17. ^ 

'%, But blessed are your eyes, for they see ; and your ears, for they hear. For 

l' verily I say unto you, that many prophets and righteous men have desired 

to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them ; and to hear 
those things which ye hear, and have not heard them. 

Since the Advent of our Savior, there has hardly been so fit an 
occasion to appropriate the benediction of the text, as we have to- 
day ; nor has there been an occasion when so many people, and peo- 
ple scattered over so large a portion of the globe, responded to a 
call to give thanks and sing, as are to-day responding to the procla- 
mation of thanksgiving issued by our President, Andrew Johnson. 

Great events have been transpiring in the last five years. Great 
issues have hung upon them ; issues affecting the church as well as 
the State, the vital efficiency of a preached gospel upon the hearts 
of men, and the social and domestic relations of life in this country, 
and indirectly elsewhere. The whole human race has been interest- 
ed in them. There is scarcely a square mile of inhabited land, or a 
square league of navigable water on the globe, where these events 
and these issues have not been talked over. This has been so not 
alone because of their intrinsic greatness, but also because their na- 
ture was such as to interest, and their determination will be seen to 
affect the rights and happiness, and the future condition, of men and 
nations to the earth's remotest boundary, and to the end of time. — 
Within these walls we are a little company, our voices weak, and 



our hearts, it may be, not very highly and sacredly attuned to prayer 
and praise; but we occupy only a point of tho earth, and we'com- 
pose only a mite of the grand hosts that are now swelling the an- 
them which is wafting itself to heaven for the favor of God in crown- 
ing freedom's cause with victory, crushing into utter defeat our ene- 
mies in arms ; and for filling our land at the same time with un- 
heard of plenty, and all the conditions of immediate and future pros- 
perity. 

This re-united country of ours stretches from Cape Flattery on 
the N. W. to Eastport on the N. E., over fifty-eight degrees of lon- 
gitude, nearly one-sixth part of the circumference of the whole earth ; 
from Madawaska and the Lake of the Woods on the forty-ninth 
parallel of latitude, to Brownsville and Key West near the twenty 
fourth, more than one-fourth the distance between the Equator and 
the North Pole. It is now divided into forty-five States and Terri- 
tories. The average size of each is three times as large as Greece, 
once so famous in the history of the world. Three of these average 
States would be larger than France, and two of them larger than 
the Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. In every one of these 
States and Territories are people who rejoice with us to-day ; and 
over this vast region of the earth, almost numberless worshipers, 
many of them with a joy and gratitude for new found freedom, and 
the hope that they and their children may never more be subject to 
the passions and lash of a despotic master, are giving thanks with a 
zest which we never felt, perhaps never can feel till we see face to 
face Him who laid down his life to redeem us from sin. And more 
than these, countrymen of ours, in every clime and on every sea 
and in every nation under the whole heaven, join with us. And 
still more, the enslaved and oppressed citizens of other lands bow 
reverently with us in thanksgiving that republicanism and freedom 
have triumphed here, presaging their triumph ere long elsewhere. — 
And further still, the pure and generous in all the earth unite with 
us in grateful acknowledgements to Almighty God for the success 
of our cause, and in the hope of better days for the world hastened 
by our example, and through our influence. 



To make our giving of thanks take a deeper hold upon our inteL 
ligent nature we will give our attention to some of the specific les- 
sons taught in this great war against the slaveholders' rebellion, and 
some of the personal and national virtues which have obviously 
been promoted by it. 

1. The war has taught us that the manhood of our people has not 
degenerated — neither in comparison with other nations, nor with 
that of our Fathers of former generations. 

Some may consider this a small matter, but I do not consider it 
so. Work, physical, intellectual and moral, is the glory of man on 
earth. He is of little use here when he ceases to work or to stimu- 
late or direct others in their work. And the amount and excellency 
of one's work will depend on his manhood. So the amount and va- 
lue of the work a nation does for itself and the world will 
depend on the manhood of the people it rears. There is no en- 
terprise that so calls out and tests the manhood of a people as large 
and protracted wars. Perhaps we may add there is nothing that so 
effectively promotes and strengthens manhood. 

Now it was becoming pretty widely to be believed that Americans 
were degenerating. We were, it was supposed, falling below our 
forefathers and also below the people of other countries, in the three 
chief elements of manhood — muscular strength,power of intellect and 
personal courage. It has again and again been said, that, as a peo- 
ple, we were thin and nervous in body, quick yet shallow in mind, 
irritable, vain and irresolute in temper ; but in no one of these qual- 
ities were we capable of endurance, or sustained force. 

The degeneration of some families, changing from the laborious 
occupation of their poor fathers to the idle enjoyment of inherited 
property, and of others changing from rural country residences to 
those of the town or city, has given an occasion for this belief in 
some casesj but though it may be said of one family that it has de- 
generated, it may quite as truly be said of many others that they 
have not. Scientific statistics show that the average length of hu- 
man life, and the number of persons who attam an extreme old age 
have increased. 

The first efforts of the war at Bull Run, Big Bethel, Ball's 



6 

Bluff, and some luoveincnts in Missouri, Western A'^irginia, Ken- 
tucky and Tennessee, the Shenandoah Valley, and on the Peninsula 
of Virginia, seemed to confirm the belief of degeneracy. The Lon- 
don Times' correspondent wrote that in our conflicts of arms, there 
was nothing worthy to be called war, according to European prece- 
dents. There was neither strength of intellect or skill shown by our 
leaders, nor courage or endurance exhibited in our ranks. And 
many there were of us, who, to say the least, queried an^ously 
within ourselves whether it might not be so, and who looked with 
great solicitude and some doubt for the coming man, and the coming 
time, which should enable us to^epel the contemptuous sneers of the 
old world, and to re-instate our confidence in ourselves. 

But all this is now paet, not to return in this generation or the 
next. The men, the times, so anxiously looked for, have come. — 
Probably the riding of Streight, Dahlgren, Wilson, Kilpatrick and 
Sheridan, was never surpassed by any cavalry. The march from the 
Rappahannoek to Gettysburgh, under the hottest sun of Summer, 
and the three days' fighting that followed without rest to officers or 
men, battalion after battalion wheeling out of their weary march 
along road or field, over hills and through valleys, only to take po- 
sition in the line of battle, dusty, sweaty, footsore and hungry, yet 
resolute for the bloody strife, has few if any equals in the annals of 
war, unless the rebel hosts, moving against them on the other side 
of the moujitains,and on their return, did equal marching, and I sup- 
pose we must admit that they did. The persistent " hammering" 
shown at Pea Eidge and Stone River, and at Shiloh, Vicksburgh, 
Spottsylvania and Petersburgh by Grant, were probably never 
equalled by martial hosts. The dashing prowess of Sheridan and 
his men in the last Shenandoah campaign, and in the winning race 
to Appomattox, surpasses the proudest exploits of Napoleon. The 
great march of Sherman, in the numbers employed, the open and 
defenceless nature of the country and exposure each mile to his ene- 
mies, the distance travelled from Chattanooga to Atlanta, Milledge- 
ville, Savannah, Columbia, Fayetteville and Raleigh, the injury 
done to his enemy, and the little loss sustained by himself, stands 
alone in the histories of war that were ever written, or that are like- 



ly to be in ages to come. While the grand moving' circular bomb- 
ardment and reduction of Port Royal by Commodore Dupont ; the 
terrific fight and destruction of the whole fleet of rebel gunboats at 
Memphis ; the forcing of his way up the Mississippi in spite af forts, 
batteries, chain cables,gunboats and boats of fire, and his movement up 
the harbor of Mobile against the combined attack of forts and ships of 
war, himself lashed in the rigging of his flag ship, have placed the 
name of Earragut alongside of the greatest names of naval warfare, 
and all has shown that our marines are equal to our landsmen in 
arms. 

The trouble at first arose from the fact that we were in business 
to which we had not been trained. But once trained, our manhood 
is unchallenged. Yet this could not have been, save that we had 
the manhood, to he trained. And recorded facts, I believe, show 
that a larger proportion of our men of military age have, under rigid 
examination, proved sound, than in the countries of the old world ; 
also that our soldiers measured more in height and around the chest, 
and weighed more. In these tests of physical manhood, as well as 
in the trials of courage and endurance in the field, the men from 
Vermont excelled, except that those from Michigan were a small 
fraction tafler. 

In diplomatists, statesmen and cabinet officers, we have found men 
equal to the greatest tasks that were ever undertaken. Adams and 
Dayton have shown themselves not inferior to old J ohn Adams and 
Ben Franklin. Stanton and Welles have raised and organized more 
armies, built and employed more warships, steamboats and railroads, 
and provided more material of war, than any other two men — I 
don't know but I might say any other ten men who ever lived. — 
And their records and accounts for all this have been well nigh per- 
fect for honesty, accuracy and systematic order. It is enough to 
say that our Senators and Congressmen, Governors and officers of 
the States, have been equal to the demands made upon them. 

And the men who have been called by us, and in the providence 
of Grod, to preside over us, stand at least side by side with the greatest 
of the world's great men, and it is our peculiar joy to believe and 



feel that they were especially great in moral goodness, and christian 
principle. 

Abraham Lincoln was stricken down by an assassin's hand, in 
the moment of the nation's joy for the triumph to which he had just 
led us, but he has obtained a name that will never die, and a place 
in the hearts of our people, and of all people, that will be more dear 
as time and the destinies of nations roll on. Andrew Johnson bids 
fair to stand beside him in all that entitles a ruler to the grateful 
regard of those who love liberty, justice and intellectual power, mag- 
nanimity and benevolence. I will only further speak ot these men 
by quoting a few remarks concerning them, made three weeks ago 
by an intelligent English nobleman to his countrymen, on returning 
from an extensive tour in this country. " There was a letter of 
Mr. Lincoln which he wished every one of them had read. * >? * 
The character of that great man had never been appreciated in 
Europe. And when they come to read his letters, messages, and 
dispatches, * * * they will rise from the perusal with a pro- 
found appreciation of the man, and a thankfulness to God that such 
a man lived in such a time." 

Of Andrew Johnson he said ; " He was a man who, if once they 
were brought into contact with him, they will never forget. He was 
one of nature's true nobility. He had not only talent and mind, but, 
thank God, a heart as well." I must add some words from a French 
Journal, the Paris " Bebats :" "The man of zeal, patriotism and of 
rare good sense, the glorious and deeply regretted Abraham Lincoln." 

It is peculiarly a cause of gratitude and encouragement to us, that 
both these men are the exclusive products of American soil, and 
American institutions. The men of the Revolution, Wash- 
ington, Hancock, Adams, Franklin, Hamilton, Henry, and 
Richard Henry Lee, were trained under a royal government. Their 
dignified bearing and courtly manners' and culture were almost 
wholly English. But these men are American in every way ; — Re- 
publican in growth, size, manners, thought and feeling, in all their 
statemanship, impulses and aims. And can we not thank God that 
American Republicanism has proved itself capabTe to raise men, 
and men of such manhood ? Amidst the many sad evils of war, — 



and there are very many— the proof of these facts is worth some- 
thing to us, and especially when connected with the other conceded 
fact, that such a war may tend to increase still more the manhood 
of a people. 

2. The war has shown that we possess immense wealth, and 
more immense power to acquire it. 

Hitherto it has been supposed that only a few of the old coun- 
tries, England, France, Germany, Prussia and Austria, had accumu- 
lated great wealth, and could furnish resources for great wars. War 
has always made great demand for such resources, and especially 
since the arms and munitions of war have become so many and so 
important, and the soldiers' health and comfort have been better pro- 
vided for. The expense of war has been greatly increased by the 
use of rifles, heavy cannon, railroads, steamboats andiron-clad ships. 
In the times of Napoleon it came to be a proverb that the heaviest 
purse would in the end win. This proverb was flaunted in our faces 
at the opening of the rebellion, while its agents were so successfully 
seizing the opportunity to get the sympathy of Europe, and to ne- 
gotiate in London and Hamburgh for loans, munitions, and ships of 
war. It was given out that our government could make no pur- 
chases except for gold, and that not one cent of loan could be had 
by us across the water. And of course, it was said, we could not 
carry on a long war without foreign money ; that we were a nation 
of laborers, shopkeepers with small means, and politicians with 
none, 

But all this has ceased. The refusal ot foreigners to loan to us 
was one of the means of our success ; oar universal enterprise and 
industry, each person laboring for himself and gaining a little above 
his present and personal wants, was another. The government sought 
its supplies and money out of the universal industry, and small ac- 
cumulations in every city, village, hamlet, farm and shop in the 
land. This stimulated to unwonted vigor all our industrial pursuits, 
to make something that the army needed, and to get the govern- 
ment's pay for it, and to loan from time to time the little that could 
be saved from the monthly income, and get the government's notes 



10 

for it. Thus we have proved the great wealth-producing power of 
the nation. More fortunes were found which could loan their hund- 
reds of thousands of dollars than had before been suspected ; im- 
mensely more that could spare a few thousands and hundredg ; and 
still more, great numbers of the people, who hitherto had laid up 
little or nothing, found that they could save a monthly sum which 
would both aid the government, and be an accumulating investment 
for themselves. 

By the use of machinery in shops and on farms, and by calling 
out some labor which had been unproductive, more was actually pro- 
duced than before a million of soldiers had been drawn from p ro- 
ductive labor to the field. Slims amounting to, I suppose, about 
five thousand millions of dollars have been collected by the govern- 
ment in five years, about two hundred and fifty dollars each for 
every man, woman and child in the loyal States. This has come, 
like the waters of the Mississippi, from a vast region of country. — 
Springs, rills, brooks and creeks, from every farm, mountain side, 
hill and valley, have contributed to swell the mighty flood that it is 
when all come together. About two-fifths of this has been paid, 
and three thousand millions remain as debt. But it is due to our 
own people, and in fact is to us individually not so much a debt as 
an investment on which we are to receive the interest annually, and 
the principal when we want it. It can hardly be said that the coun- 
try is the poorer for it. And besides this, the stimulated industry 
and economy of the people have laid by about as much otherwise as 
usual. The returns of the Assessors of Vermont for this year give a 
large increase of personal property over that of 1860, though the 
large amount of U. S. bonds held by large numbers of our people 
was not counted in. According to the United States Agricultural 
Commissioner's estimates, the aggregate number of bushels of all the 
crops in the country this year exceeds that of any previous year, 
and that of 1864 by two hundred and fifteen millions, seventy-one 
thousand four hundred and eleven bushels. Besides this, buildings, 
farms, manufactories, trade, and recently commerce, have increased 
and improved. This is so over the whole loyal portion of the land. 
An item going the rounds of the papers says : ♦' Nino thousand new 



11 

buildiDgs were put up in Chicago the last year. Six of them cost 
one hundred thousand dollars each ; forty others cost thirty thousand 
dollars each. The total amount of capital employed in building dur- 
ing the year was six millions of dollars. The number of new churches 
was seven, of schools, two, of public halls four." Old cities, like 
Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Washington, have grown, if not 
so fast as Chicago, yet faster than has been their previous growth. 
Sir Morton Peto, the railroad king, ofBristol,England, who has just 
returned home from an extensive tour of observation in this coun- 
try, with reference to investment of money here, told his country- 
men at a public meeting on the thirteenth of November last, " That 
Chicago had public buildings finer than any city he knew of. He 
did expect to find in America exhaustion, and society somewhat dis- 
arranged ; but he saw nothing of the kind. There was nothing 
throughout the whole of the great country that would have led him 
to suppose such a struggle had existed." It is an amazing fact, that 
throughout the mighty struggle, our educational, benevolent and re- 
ligious contributions have not declined, but greatly increased. Never 
in the same portion of time have so many and so large sums been 
given to endow colleges and seminaries of learning, or so large taxes 
voted for common schools. Many millions were collected as gratui- 
ties for the soldiers. Large funds have been contributed for those 
who have been disabled, to support the families and educate the 
children of those who have fallen in field, hospital or prison. It is 
believed that the poor have not been forgotten, or permitted to suf- 
fer more than heretofore. Our churches have been sustained, usually 
without loss, often with gain, at home ; and never, in the history of 
our mission causes, have so large sums been given to carry the gos- 
pel abroad, and to the borders of our own land. 

David, at the completion of his preparations for the great temple, 
devoutly thanked God in the congregation of the people, and with 
abundant sacrifices, that his people had been able to offer so willing- 
ly after this sort. Still more should we give thanks that the people 
of our beloved land have been able to offer so willingly after this 
sort ; and not less for the proofs it gives of ability and willingness 
to offer more largely in the future for every good work. 



12 

3. The war has shown that our government has cohesion and 
unity. With all its largeness of personal freedom and State rights, 
we are a nation — one, not many — a nation capable of concentrating 
and directing its utmost resources for a single object, and especially 
for preserving its own integrity, and for defence against enemies at 
home or abroad. This fact now established in respect to our gov- 
ernment is of great value. Most of us have thought little upon it, 
and cannot well appreciate it. But to our ablest statesmen it has 
always been a matter of great anxiety, and statesmen of other coun- 
tries have always predicted our fall when some exigency like this re- 
bellion should come upon us. Republicanism, to the extent to which 
personal freedom, and the rights of suffrage especially in the free 
States, were granted, in the combining of so many States with varied 
interests into one nation, giving each a certain sovereignty and in- 
dependent rights of its own, and yet welding it into a solid and in* 
separable unity with all the rest, was an experiment in the world — 
an experiment which foreign statesmen disbelieved in, many of our 
own doubted, and all watched with solicitude. This solicitude ap- 
pears on almost every page of Washington's farewell address. I re- 
member that Daniel Webster once proposed to let our territory west 
of the Rocky Mountains erect a national government for itself, on 
the ground that a country so extensive, of such large differences of 
climate, production and internal interests, could not be governed by 
one President and on Congress elected as ours are. 

All this is over. It is an experiment no longer. A mightier trial 
than any monarchy ever haa, and came whole and prosperous out of, 
— the determined, united, powerful revolt of one-third of its own 
people, carrying with them the sympathy of most other nations, and 
securing thence large resources of aid and comfort, this revolt and 
sympathy growing out of the roots of a form of despotism trans- 
planted from Europe, and too long tolerated here — has come upon 
us and we have triumphed over it. The revolt has been overcome 
without a particle of compromise, and without departing from a 
single demand made by us at the beginning, but on the other hand, 
asserting step by step as we advanced, and in the end gaining many 



13 

things that would have been yielded by a large iflajority of our loyai 
people at the outset. The conquered rebels with one voice admit 
that all they started to get is lost, and that these points are settled : 
Negro slavery is to have no more guaranties from the National 
Constitution and laws, and their doctrine of State rights, the right 
of secession, is gone forever. Thus these two most fruitful sources 
of angry debate and bad blood in all our political canvassing and on 
the floors of legislation, are foreclosed, and forever. Thank God, we 
are one, and the ties that unite us are to be stronger than before. 

4. The war has shown that our government has power. This 
is not so much a distinct point, as the result of the three preceding. 
We have manhood, wealth and unity. This gives the elements of 
power and facility to uie it. This is no small matter. Power to 
attempt and to carry out any proper enterprise for the advance- 
ment of commercial, social, moral, intellectual or religious good at 
home, and to stand up for our rights, and to utter our voice among 
the nations of the earth, is something of no slight account for our 
well being and influence in the world. Hitherto we have been de- 
ficient here. Great questions and great enterprises we have ap- 
proached irresolutely and handled softly. Any thing under the 
guise of religion, however repulsive and wicked, was almost certain 
of exemption from governmental interference. Kebellion has been 
preached for twenty years, and for the last ten years boldly and de- 
fiantly, in Southern pulpits ; and because these were supposed to be 
safe from governmental control, southern leaders made the pulpit 
the chief theatre whence the loyalty of the people was poisoned. 
Now it can shut them up if they abuse their privileges and endanger 
the Republic, and require the ministers of religion to take a loyal 
oath, or cease to practice their profession. Mormonism, with its de- 
grading and disgusting polygamy, has been tolerated for a quarter 
of a century, because government hesitated to attempt any power 
over it, or because politicians feared loss of influence or position if 
they should meddle with it. There are signs that this will not be so 
much longer. Fit laws for dealing with intemperance, and the sale 
of intoxicating liquor were, after a long struggle, enacted ; but gov- 



14 

eminent officers have shrunk from enforcing them, till an army offi- 
cer, Col. King, was chosen State Constable of Mass., and with sol- 
dierly courage, decision and promptness, proceeded to execute these 
laws, and the laws against Sabbath desecration, gambling and other 
crimes as well, which have been almost a dead letter on all our 
Statute books. 

Among the nations of the world we have had little power or influ- 
ence till now. Our rights were little respected, and our voice was 
unheeded. Under the guise of neutrality, France, England, Spain and 
German States encouraged and aided our rebels, with indecent and 
unblushing haste. We were brow beaten into submission in the case 
of the Trent. Our Monroe doctrine was spit upon by France in 
Mexico. Our Canada neighbors insulted us by harboring our ene- 
mies, and sending them over the border to plunder us, and cheering 
them as they came back with their spoil. 

I think this is ended. We are feared where we were despised. 
Our principles, polity and sense of justice will hereafter control our 
action, and not our timidity. European writers already begin to 
talk ofihefour great powers of the earth, England, France, Russia 
and the United States, giving us a place along side of their proudest 
names. If we do not stand at the head soon, or even a grade above 
them in twenty five years, we shall advance much slower than we 
have in the past twenty five years. 

As illustrating our power, and our consciousness of it, it is worthy 
of notice that the greatest municipal work, and the three greatest 
national works that have ever been attempted in this country, have 
been commenced during the progress of the war — the Chicago tun- 
nel, the Pacific railroad, the Russian telegraph, the founding of an 
Agricultural College in each State of the Union. If these enterprises 
presage others to come, equal to the developing resources of the 
country, who can predict what we shall be in magnificence at home, 
and in influence among the nations, before some of you will leave 
the stage of active life! 

It remains for us, while justly viewing these facts, which we need 
not and cannot ignore, to cultivate the spirit of meekness before the 



15 

God of Heaven, and the virtues of righteousness and benevolence, 
without which we cannot retain our prosperity. Let us hope and 
pray that this power may be wisely wielded in the interests of 
peaceful industry, moral and religious enterprise, and in pure justice 
towards all men. The omens are now favorable for this. The ac- 
knowledged possession of power is one of the means whereby we may 
avoid its harsh use. Consciousness of power enables one to speak 
gently, and to keep his forces out of sight, and at the same time 
command respect. Foreigners already begin to speak of us with a 
deference never before observed. We have disbanded a great army 
of nearly a million of men when we have still questions of the grav- 
est importance at issue with each of the two greatest nations of the 
world. Let French royalty withdraw voluntarily and quietly from 
Mexico if he will ; let our claims for spoliation by the English Ala- 
bama and Shenandoah rest without blows or angry words, pressed 
only by just law and sound argument, till their justice is seen and 
confessed by all those who are interested in the peace of the nations 
and the security of commerce. It is surely a cause of thanksgiving 
to Almighty Grod that he has brought us up to where we are not to 
be subjected to the truckling schemes or fears of our own politicians, 
if it be so, nor to the insults of the proudest nations of the earth. 

5. The war has advanced the ideas and aims of our people on 
the subject of education and free schools. These ideas were only 
started in the right directions^ not carried into practice fully in this 
State ; not at all by the Nation, as such, only partially in any 
of the States, and not at all in the slave-holding States. As a mat- 
ter of history, it is found that the States went into rebellion, in al- 
most exact proportion as they neglected public education. In none 
of the insurgent States was there a free school system. In the semi- 
rebel States, if there were any system at all, it was imperfect and 
inoperative. In States where the system of free schools was the 
most effective, the loyalty of the people was the most staunch. It is 
now seen and admitted that an effective free school system in all the 
States would have saved us from rebellion. It is seen also that the 
five billion of dollars expended in the war, would have furnished a 



16 

fund, which, if put to interest at six per cent,, would yield thirty 
dollars a year annually to the end of time for every child of school 
age now in the nation, — a sum large enough to furnish free tuition 
to every child up through the full grade of education, common 
school, academic and collegiate, with a large sum to spare. 

The people are beginning to see that it is economical as well as a 
National and moral duty, to offer a free education to all those who 
are to become citizens of the Kepublic. A national system of edu- 
cation has already been proposed and finds advocates. The early 
Fathers of Vermont projected a grand system, a University for the 
State, a grammar school for each county, and a common school for 
every neighborhood, all free. Their poverty prevented their carry- 
ing it into actual practice, and the completion of it has been post- 
poned. But the impulse of the war has brought us to make tiie 
common schools free for the first time. A movement has just been 
made in uniting the Agricultural College fund (now amounting to 
one hundred and forty-three thousand dollars) with the funds of our 
University, which will, we hope, facilitate the acquisition of other 
funds, so that we may, at no distant day, offer collegiate instruction 
free to every son of Vermont. Then, when we have provided for 
free academic instruction, and for a much needed and free College 
for young ladies, our system will be complete and noble beyond 
praise. Other States are pushing on in this direction. A majority 
of the Northern States are ahead of Vermont. The Middle States 
are acting. The loyal people of the South are looking at it. The 
Freedmen are struggling for schools, and liberal men from the North 
are helping them. Senator Sumner introduced on Monday of this 
week, the first day of the session of Congress, a resolution requiring 
in all the States late in rebellion, " The organization of an educa- 
tional system for the equal benefit of all, without distinction of color 
or race." Surely the world moves. An impulse has been given to 
it by this war, grievous as are many of its fruits, and, in this matter 
of education, in the right direction. A mighty cause for thanksgiv- 
ing to every one who loves his country for its intelligence, freedom 
and virtue, and would honor God by efforts to raise up freemen of in- 
telligence and virtue to His glory. 



17 

t3. The war has promoted the interests of religion, and exalted 
tne sense of the honor due to it from our nation. This is a great 
proposition ; and I am fully aware of its magnitude when I assert 
it; but on the most serious deliberation I believe it to be true. War 
is cruel, barbarous, and in its incidental influences it develops, and 
often fosters a great deal that is wicked and corrupt. But in other 
aspects, and broader influences, it may rebuke sin, correct great 
wrongs, develop individual piety, and shed upon religion increased 
honor in the sight of men. 

Let me make a distinction here between the religion of the loyal 
and disloyal States, which I believe to exist, lest I be misunderstood. 
Every christian has felt that one of the saddest things connected 
with the war, and the hardest to be reconciled to his conscience and 
understood, was that, on each side, the same bible and God and 
Savior were believed in and invoked. I have no doubt that there 
has been and is much true piety at the South. It is founded on those 
teachings of the bible which have been kept free from other teach- 
ings interpreted to uphold slavery, and on the general teaching of re- 
ligion down to a recent period. From the early history of our coun- 
try down to twenty-five years ago there was no essential difference 
in the teaching of religion and the character of christian piety North 
and South. 

Since about that time Southern religious teachers have sought to 
make the bible sustain slavery, and the effort has been carried far- 
ther than was intended — to defend many of the incidental wrongs 
and cruelties that cannot be separated from slavery. Thus it has per- 
mitted men in the habitual practice of cruelty and wrong to be en- 
rolled as christian communicants, and to give leputation to religion. 
Political leaders, also, because the pulpit was a powerful means of 
educating the people, and because the government was not likely to 
interfere with its use for any purpose, to a large extent, subsidized 
it for their malign purposes, and from it "fired the Southern heart." 
The earlier taught religion of the South, on which its earlier and gen- 
uine piety was founded, advocated soundtheology, pure loyalty, the 
rights of men black as well as white, peace on earth and good will to 
men. That religion is honored by the war. By the destruction of 



18 

slavery, and the opening to the colored man churches, schools, 
the possibility to keep sacred the marriage relation, to know the 
meaning of the word home, and to enjoy the society of wife and 
children, the war has honored the old teaching of the bible 
at the South, and its almost universal teaching at the North. It has 
shown the God of the bible to be on the side of freedom, and equal 
rights, and domestic happiness ; or, rather, in the expressive language 
of Pres. Lincoln, it has shown the position of the North respecting 
the rights of the colored man, to be on God's side, for His side al- 
ways prevails. 

The war found us with a President who revered the name of God 
and bowed reverently before the Bible. All the public proclama- 
tions and messages he sent forth to the people acknowledged God as 
our Great Sovereign, and penitent submission before Him, and obe- 
dience to His will, as the proper posture of those who desired His 
blessing. As far as he could, consistently, there is no doubt he fa- 
vored the promotion of Christian men to posts of responsible duty, 
and the labors of christian men for and in the army. No armies of 
the world were ever so largely furnished with bibles and reliajious 
reading, or had so much evangelical labor done in them. The sol- 
diers of no army were ever drawn more largely from evangelical 
churches, and from social life where religion prevailed, or were fol- 
lowed by more numerous and fervent prayers for their spiritual 
good. As a consequence of this, with the blessing of God, we 
doubt not, no soldiers ever returned from so long service in the field, 
with morals and religion less impaired. I think we here can say 
that our soldiers have returned to us, with scarcely an exception, no 
worse than they went away ; that many of them show a nobler man- 
hood, and better moral or christian character, and give promise of a 
more useful citizenship. Testimony like this has been borne by many 
ministers and christian persons in all parts of the land. 

Christian piety has not receded in our country. Revivals have 
occurred with usual frequency and in many places, and there are in" 
dications of greater good of this kind in the near future. Our church- 
es have sustained themselves, not only without loss, but with rather 



19 

more than the usual increase. Our young men in training for the 
ministry, with the return of peace, have returned to their studies, so 
that the colleges and seminaries are now, in the first year of peace 
filled to nearly or quite their usukl number before the war. Our 
missionary efibrts have not been relaxed at all, or diminished in 
amount, and now are projected on a much larger scale than ever. — 
The seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars proposed by the Con- 
gregationalists is only excelled by the million dollars proposed by 
the Methodists, and this only for Home Missionary purposes — and 
I know not how much, by Baptists, Pres])yterians and Episcopa. 
lians. And all evangelical churches give evidence that they are now 
preparing with more than their wonted zeal and faith, and hope for 
the dews of Heavenly Grace, and the sunshine of the Holy Spirit 
to give us a great spiritual growth in numbers and in graces. This 
wc will all say to-day is what we need, and for this we will pray. — 
Surely, therefore, for these religious fruits of our great struggle, we 
will give thanks and sing. 

7. This enumeration of results to be grateful for will not be 
complete unless is included that which seems chiefest. Slavery was 
at the bottom of nearly all our past political troubles, and it was more 
and more threatening us in the future. The result of the war has 
secured its downfall in this country, and hastened on its end in all 
the world. Thus we hope to avert the displeasure of God, and se- 
cure his more precious favor in the future. And surely He has 
called us to atone for our sins with great and sore sacrifices. 

Not that every slave is now actually in the secure possession of 
all his sacred rights of person, property, social well being, and do- 
mestic happiness. Not that our Southern brethren have changed 
their minds, or desires, or passions. We have the clearest reason to 
know that they have not, and that they will stil> hold the colored 
man in bondage if they can ; and if they cannot, they will still hold 
him in a condition as subordinate to themselves as possible. But at 
least this Republic has started on the road to freedom. Thousands 
once slaves are now put beyond any power of their former masters. 
No fugitive slave will ever as;ain be demanded or returned under 



1>0 

National laws. Mason and Dixon's line has moved >^outhward, and 
no man can now find where it lies. The spell is broken that shut 
the lips and restrained the actions of liberty-loving men, that 
stopped boats and mail bags on their journey southward, if per- 
chance they might talk of sweet freedom to men of sable skin. The 
power is broken that forbid instruction and schools to the colored 
man. The haughty despotism that came up from the plantations, 
and claimed to rule in Congress, and to manage the executive power 
of our country, to dictate the platforms of national political par- 
ties, and to arrange their slates, is crushed utterly. Those lords 
that so recently and insolently went out, declaring they icill never 
more live with us, now come back begging for a place in our coun- 
cils, and the crumbs falling from the table of those they called mud- 
sills and beneath their slaves. The majority of States needed to 
confirm the Constitutional Amendment forever forbidding slavery, is 
just this day secured. The end draweth near. 

We have only to remain firmly, but kindly, holding the power 
which the war they invoked and begun has given us, using it right- 
eously towards the defiant, with christian magnanimity towards the 
repentant and submissive, with liberal and fraternal love towards 
those so long held In bondage, and American slavery will soon be 
known no more save in history. 

The work of war is done. Now is upon' us the work of benevo- 
lence and religion. Those whose words for the slave have been ma- 
ny and earnest, now have the opportunity to show their sincerity 
and heart value. Words are cheap and easy to bestow. Now the 
same cause needs money and labor, and sacrifice, and genuine sym- 
pathy, and heart moving philanthropy, to raise up to a worthy man- 
hood those from whom the shock of war has burst the chains. This 
will be a great work, a long work, one that will test our patience, 
our liberality, and our genuine regard for the colored man ; and be- 
fore it is well done, I suppose it may test our faith in the equality 
and the virtue of man. But through the good providence^of God 
the time has come when we can do all that our hearts move us to 
for our brethren so long held in bondage. We have looked for this, 



21 

and prayed for it, and it has come, though not altogether as we were 
expecting. Surely may we all, and especially those who have long 
worked as well as prayed for the abolition of slavery, listen with joy 
and praise to the Great Master, fulfilling in these recent works of 
His the ancient words, and by both works and words saying to us to- 
day : *' Blessed are your eyes, for they see : and your ears, for they 
hear. For verily, I say unto you, that many prophets and righteous 
men have desired to see those tilings which ye see, and have not 
seen them ; and to hear those things which ye hear, and have not 
heard them." 



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